Yet another raiding post, hopefully the last

Hello there and thank you in advance for reading this. Zen, Wal, Ginga and me had a little chat after last raid (31st) and we're thinking that our raidinglevel has hit an all-time low to the level where we as officers are kinda burning out. This means the joy for us (and formost Zen) leading the raids is decreasing by the week up to a point we're not really wanting to make the effort anymore of putting them up even.

This is partly because the progress atm moment is not really progress but de-progress, so to say. Slowly getting further step by step -even if its an inch every raidnight - is not the problem. But for weeks on end we're not really getting anywhere. One week its ok, the other week its a total shitshow. This is in our view due to (ONCE again) the shittalk on discord and the lag of focus after a couple of wipes.

Therefor we're comming up with a new but old concept of how we're gonna raid for atleast a few weeks. See it as an Aspi-retro raiding format like we did for so many years.

Mondays will be back to our standard farmnights. On these nights we limit our raiding to only farming content. As of the 31st of july this means bosses on normal and first few hc. We will not progress on any boss further in the raid. If the raid is over before 23:15st, you can form a group with people and do your weekly M+ or anything else. The reason why we do this is, so everyone can have a nice and relaxing evening. You can talk on disco about anything you like, post pictures and play your music.

Thurdays will be back to our standard progressnights. As of the 31st of july this means anything ToS HC (if we start fresh its the first boss, if we locked a boss its that particular boss). These nights discord stays clear of any shittalk, trashpictures or weirdass music in the background, so whoever is talking can have a clear voice. You can see this as our night where your social conversations are on 2nd place and progressing on a boss is at first. You have a whole week to group up with whomever you like a talk shit on discord. Just thursdays is off. If any member of the raidingteam is violating this rule, you will get asked to stop and by not abiding get kicked from that raidnight for that particular night.

We do this because it seems that we basicly have two camps (as we see it) right now. One camp that has joined this guild (or is part of this guild for a long time) that really likes the social part of raiding and does care less about progress. The other camp that likes the fact that we have a steady and firm raidroster and can actually have a decent but relaxed progression on current contant. The only sad thing is that we have to enforce a set of rules in regard of discord uses. But so be it.

Then some general rules to keep the raiding smooth and in line.

Your surplus loot gets /w to Zen or any other officers that is 'lootmaster' that night. No more rogue-linking of your items.

You only roll on an item if its an actual upgrade for you. Be it mainspec or offspec and lastly transmog. No more 'fun' rolls. This was fun the first, second or third time. Not the 4rd. Thank you.

Ilvl requirements of progressnights are ilvl 910, gems, enchants, pots, extra flask (if the cauldron is not enough). We can take 1 maybe 2 people 5 ilvls lower. But thats it. Bring your alt to mondays and once its up in gear (and you're rerolling) you can bring it on progressnights. Its easy enough to get to 910 folks, play the actual game outside of raiding and you get there in no-time.

Be on time. 20:00 is invitation. Start traveling to ToS at 20:00. 20:15 is start. Please let us know if you're later.

Change your name on discord to your actual character name (or as close to it as possible). I know I'm also guilty to not doing that.

These new set of rules will be effective from next mondays raid (7th of august). That week Ginga and me will actively help Zen out during raidnights. See this as a fair warning. Not so much as a treat but as a reminder to our core values as a guild. Thanks again for reading this.

This is really just about setting expectations. We want people to have fun (when that's appropriate), and to concentrate and make progress (when that's appropriate).

Ulver's post is making sure that the expectations are clear.

Protius had it right a few years back when he said that there is a time and a place, and about setting expectations. The analogy he used was going to the cinema. If you go to the Kid's club view of a film at 10am on a Saturday, you might expect it to be full of screaming kids. (Casual raids).... However if you book to see a serious film on say Tuesday evening, then you expect people to generally be paying attention to the film ( Progress raids)

for once i was actually quiet most of the raid :P. HOWEVER i can agree on that yesterdays raid was quite a shitshow, also ofc weve been bashing our heads on mistress for quite some time also now.. weve downed her once which is nice but i also think we should start looking at the remaining 2 bosses before maiden also so we dont get completely stuck in our track on just mistress cuz lets face it... its getting kinda fkin old :P, did some reading today and most people seem to agree shes the 3rd hardest fight in the raid (avatar and kj ofc being top 2) alot of people say that desolate host and sisters are quite forgiving, my thought would be focus on those 2 fights the upcoming progressnight just mainly if we get them down and on farm we get more loot before mistress and ofc some break from mistress handing our asses to us all night. but thats just a thought

Overall we have mixed feelings about this. There are lots of things we agree with, but also we have a few criticisms.

“we're thinking that our raiding level has hit an all-time low” - Just jump onto wowprogress and you can see that Aspiration is 20 places up from last tier in the realm. I know it’s early days but that isn’t something to feel bad about for a 2 day raiding guild. (Not to mention we almost killed sisters, 15%).As for burn out, we think everyone feels it after a week spent without any progress, and we could imagine it’s much worse of those officers who have to put in the extra effort throughout the week. And we all do appreciate the preparation even if it’s unsaid. We are all for splitting the weekly raids into a social and serious raid and feel that the biggest issues at the moment is getting everyone geared and up-to-date with boss mechanics. But, we do also think that a little bit of social chit chat in a serious raid between pulls gets morale up while wiping for the 20th time. tl;drIn short, we feel that things aren’t so gloomy and going to back to the older raiding could be helpful, however we don’t feel that rigid rules are necessary for serious raids after all we are here for fun and to kill bosses.

Overall we have mixed feelings about this. There are lots of things we agree with, but also we have a few criticisms.

“we're thinking that our raiding level has hit an all-time low” - Just jump onto wowprogress and you can see that Aspiration is 20 places up from last tier in the realm. I know it’s early days but that isn’t something to feel bad about for a 2 day raiding guild. (Not to mention we almost killed sisters, 15%).As for burn out, we think everyone feels it after a week spent without any progress, and we could imagine it’s much worse of those officers who have to put in the extra effort throughout the week. And we all do appreciate the preparation even if it’s unsaid. We are all for splitting the weekly raids into a social and serious raid and feel that the biggest issues at the moment is getting everyone geared and up-to-date with boss mechanics. But, we do also think that a little bit of social chit chat in a serious raid between pulls gets morale up while wiping for the 20th time. tl;drIn short, we feel that things aren’t so gloomy and going to back to the older raiding could be helpful, however we don’t feel that rigid rules are necessary for serious raids after all we are here for fun and to kill bosses.

I do not mind if people talk some stuff between wipes that is fine, but middle of fight, if they die they start to laugh, or talk crap just becuse they are dead is annoying, I do not mind those who die and then try to tell people what skill boss is gona do, that is fine, but middle of the fight if you are dead, then maby be little bit more quite, so rest can concentrate, there is no real reason to start to laugh out loud, becuse someone died, for example, I know my self I find it annoying, becuse I do know that if I died I most likely messed up.

also between pulls on trash I do not mind if people have fun at all, but when we come to a boss, and start to eighter go again, some concentration is needed that what I feel, also if raidleader is explaining, rest should be quite and listen, this has not realy been the case for some raids now.

I do know I have contributed to all the odd stuff also, so I am in no way innocent to it eighter, I might not chat on discord, but I do send pics there also atleast before a raid starts i do.

I might be a little bit biased to words voice chats my self, due to not realy using it my self but to listening, but there is a reason for it, I find chatting distracting if I do it my self, I also raided back in TBC up to gurthoc bloodboil in blacktemple, in a guild who did not use voice chat also, and I kinda like it.

also wiping on raids is normal, but for me atleast, seing high dps dying and then just laugh about it is for me atleast not only annoying as I mentioned, but demoralizing, I play a shadow priest and as dps for the first time since cataclysm, and I know I am not the best far from it, and I stuggle at times to do the dps needed, even if I try as hard as I can, I also know if I die, I am not the first prio to be ressed, there are others that contribute more, what is fine, so then hearing others just laugh their death or even laugh at others from dying, do make me consider do I realy want to raid or not.

Tbh, we have a lot of very skilled and well geared raiders at the moment, the participation is high and we have a very good raid leader, so I think we could be advancing a little quicker than we are. Us being the guild we are I dont expect us to stop laughing during raids, but a little more focus when we clearly suck badly wont hurt.

Having managed a guild (a long time ago) I can understand the frustration if a raid or more get out of line, so lets make the job of our officers an easier one, since we rely heavily on them and they make our raid lives actually pretty relaxed (constantly being there, being told all tactics, cauldrons,etc). That doesnt mean you cant have fun, just pay back a little more. We will all benefit.

Hello there and thank you already for your comments and views, also from the ones people told me personaly. I see alot of people are caring about our raidingnights and thats good. As Ginga said, this post is meant to set the expectations about our general raidingapproach and not to set rigid rules. I'm happy what Sol posted, since its true. We have a wonderful guild with wonderful atmosphere and lovely people. The reason why we have such a long (and ever growing) going base is because of that. However we do believe that we've become sloppy in our focus and our core values and raidapproach.

The reason why most people are raiding with (any) guild instead of pugging is because they like the structure it gives (and ofcourse because their friends are part of that guild): having a set timetable, knowing what to expect when loot is allocated, having a focused and prepared approach when encoutering a boss, knowing what to expect and is required to participate on a raidnight and so on. Over the time we've loosned up this raidstructure and have lost (imo) focus why we raid as a guild in the first place. Discord is one example of this, but its not the core-'problem' ofcourse, it is part of our raidstructure and expectations. Putting strict regulations on what/when people can say is by all means not intended and can lead up to more aggro-talk and drama. We think that having a relaxed conversation on discord is why we can make fun out of eachother and comment on eachothers behavoir in the first place. We do believe however that setting a clear distinction, with clear expectations is what makes us a stronger guild. That means we have to re-evalue our raidingapproach every now and then. This time seemed to be a good time to do it.

My initial post might be somewhat going into detail, but it was written in the moment and I think its an example of how we would like to re-set that approach.

I don't even know where to begin, i guess starting my wall of text with a apology should do. Alright first of i'm very sorry that you feel that way, and it's completely understandable at this point. I'm very grateful for all the effort you put into raidnights, thank you for that. Even tho i'm new member of this amazing guild i understand situation very well and i agree mostly with what you have said. I kind of saw this post coming, i mean things are not looking so great at progression nights but you have to keep in mind that Mistress is really challenging fight, i don't know anyone who would disagree with that. (I don't challenge anyone to disagree with me now, hehe) Even Method stated that Mistress is hell of a fight, and was real pain in the ass. I don't know how many of you remember, but on my first raid with you lovely people i said: " Mistress is going to break our spirits" Yeah.. that's what i meant.

As for talking/playing music and other annoying stuff, well.. i'm sorry for that. I apologized monday i believe but i don't mind doing it again. I'm sorry if i offended/annoyed anyone with my shitty posts/memes/sounds. I understand that dank memes are not always the answer as we are so different from each other, but it saddens me to see you people so depressed, that's why i try my best to make you laugh. Atmosphere in discord at one point was so depressing that i had to do something about it. (altho progression nights are not best time to do that, i understand that now.) I just tried to cheer you up people. Forgive me for my silly mistakes, i learn something new every raid night. (to do/not to do stuff i mean) Anyway i totally agree about focus, people need to work on that myself included. I know that sometimes it feels like we are doing worse with every try but, that's fine. We all make mistakes, we have all failed at some point. Watch tactics if you're still not sure how mechanics works. Let's make those nights less stressful for our lord and savior Zen, and his assistants, and ourselves included! I don't think that everything is so dark as it seems now, i bet after a while we will look back and laugh at this. I believe in our team and leader, so stay strong! Cheer up and keep your noses up, we still have many bosses to kill!

I'm about to come off as a cynical bastard, but if this posts goal was to increase our progression. Being "PC" isn't gonna do it. There are 3 big factors as to why we aren't progressing as we want.

1. Individual Performance

This is a personal responsibility, your performance will affect your fellow guildies. And this is especially important when there's a dozen of players. Who has taken upon themselves to spend their precious free time (6+ hours a week) on doing something that they enjoy doing. And wiping over and over again will eventually get to someone.

I'm not gonna point fingers or anything, but you can check the logs. It shows that majority of our raiders are under performing i.e not over 50% ilvl bracket. You invest time on looking up fights, you might aswell look up your own class while you're at it.

There's not much to be done here, since this is a real life guild and it's one of the core principles of Aspiration. That being said keep in mind with inconsistent roster will give inconsistent results.

3. Progression outside of raids

Not much to say here since not all of us have the time to climb high M+ keys. But, if you have limited time try to use it efficiently and try to do M+ and not fishing in Azeroth.

I'd like to start off by holing my hands up to some of the issues raised above, namely the language one, I spend much of my time at football matches or playing football and that kind of environment and its 'fruity' language P**s taking of others tends to spill over, while it is never directed in a harmful way at anyone it is possible that it can provide a negative impression, if something i do/say annoys/upsets you then call me out on it or drop me a /w.

Now to address on how we are to move forward from this, I think the general rules are fair and a good idea, and will hopefully reduce the stress on our officers and RL, who I have to say are doing a great job and are very much appreciated. I think the loosening of rules on Monday is a good idea as long as it is NOT used as an excuse to go wild and cause havoc. These changes should lead to greater respect of the RL and officer team moving forward as the current situation is not fair or acceptable to them.

Moving onto performance I think Ella is correct in saying that we need to improve, Generally my logs are poor recently and I should be doing far better. If we were to all improve only around 5% each then that would lead to a huge increase in raid wide performance leading to bigger numbers (we all love these, lets be honest!), better loots (Another Personal fave of mine) and more fun for all. Even just looking on the rankings for Warcraft logs at what talents the top parses are using and replicating them and see how it goes, its that easy and we all can get some major improvements for minimal effort! Youtube is also a great source of knowledge for these things with guides and the like!

To round off this wall of text I'd like to say a big thanks to you all as I'm having a great time raiding this Xpac with you guys, killing pixels with this motley crew makes coming back to the game and neglecting my other half well worth it, and I'd hate to see that enjoyment and progression end.

Any feedback on this frankly absurd wall of text would be most welcome and there will be an exam on the content and themes of this post coming shortly. If you agree/disagree on any points let me know and we can chat over one of Ebergars Brews!

Capzel wrote: 'I'm not gonna point fingers or anything, but you can check the logs. It shows that majority of our raiders are under performing i.e not over 50% ilvl bracket. You invest time on looking up fights, you might aswell look up your own class while you're at it.'

As one of those underperformers I would like to explain myself. I have taken the highest item lvl gear I could get for overall raid damage well knowing my stats were wrong and making my logs look worse. I have only 8% of my best stat and 29% of my worst. Also I do not have my bis legendary. Time will help on that, but time will not change that I do not use the best talent RoP . I cannot see it well and it is too challenging for me. Apart from that i try as hard as I can and time permits, and it is not lack of knowledge or will that keeps my logs bad.

I chose this guild because I thought players like me were welcome. I did not know that we were seen as underperformers, but I agree that you would progress much faster with better players. I am happy we can have this discussion here so I can find out if this guild is still a good fit for me with my current gear and my visual handicap.

It is important that a guild is comprised of people with similar skills, expectations and temperaments. And i see more agreement here than disagreement, which is very positive.

I've already expressed my opinions on the matter in person to Ulver, but I will comment on a couple of points:

Aspiration has (rightly or wrongly) always been about "as long as you have the basic requirements you are eligible to join the raids". While I see and sometimes share in the frustrations, this basic concept of Aspiration and the views on raiding have always been along this vein, and we all knew it from the time we joined.

We can expand on the raiding roster argument by adding the fact that officers take the time to put up a calendar invite so we can at least gauge what sort of raid we are in for and can plan. Some people are above that and simply cannot be bothered to click a button to say whether they will be there or not and simply log on expecting a raid spot. Expanding on that we really should be thankful that certain members do take the time to provide food and flasks, but this should NOT be taken as a given for all raids.

Turning up on time - this always used to mean actually being at the instance ready to start at raid start time. Some members consistently expect to be summoned.

Disappearing mid raid to do whatever during the raid, putting points in weapons, changing talents, forgetting extra roll tokens, you name it. Most of the items you need are provided, but a personal annoyance of mine is the expectation that you will get your repairs, enchants, tomes, flasks, food and pots provided. These things cost other people time, and materials, you all have plenty of bloods, so a little appreciation by at least offering to replace materials would be appreciated.

Ignoring the raid leaders request to be quiet while tacts are explained, most of the time we should already know this stuff, but sometimes the execution may be changed to what may be deemed to be a better option.

I have rambled a little and this does not cover what Ulver and I spoke of but it is my 2 cents on this subject.

I personally don't mind having a slow progression or wiping a few times. I'm just afraid that there might be other people who'll burn out and eventually will stop playing, and we'll keep have to deal with these roster "droughts" that have occurred before. That being said having someone play their class at an average level isn't much to ask for. We already just implemented 910 ilvl minimum, wouldn't that be considered elitist too?

The only reason last raid was a mess is because people at that point is tired of doing the same stuff over and over again, they'll eventually find themselves trying to lighten up the mood or morale of the group, or anything in that matter to pass the time. Doing these formality checks wouldn't do much, since we aren't tackling the underlying issue here.

Officers
Ginga - Gingamagic (btag-hidden)Suruntuulen - CirithUngol (#Ulvér2639)Waleria - Weffina (Natte#1224)Zendemon (MikeP#2613)
Is your class not listed beneath do not hesitate to drop us an application. These class requests are only an idication on what we need the most. All classes are at all time welcome to join!